4 Remedies for Fundamentalist vs. Atheist Starbucks Red Cup Wars

Last updated on: November 10, 2015 at 6:05 pm By Artur Rosman

I hail from Seattle. Seattle is the America’s capital city of coffee. I know my coffee. The city’s lore dates coffee fetishizing (in a positive sense) to the founding of Cafe Allegro in 1975. In those days Seattle was still happily a fiscally and psychologically depressed city (read D’Ambrosio’s critically acclaimed Loitering for the gory details). The Starbucks brown water has very little to do with this proud tradition. True Seattlelites, that is, not Californian squatters and dot.com carpetbaggers, do not... Read more

Cosmos: Weakened Edition, 6

Last updated on: November 8, 2015 at 2:59 pm By Artur Rosman

Fully half of this week’s most popular posts were related to René Girard (RIP). I suspect this will continue as I do my best to introduce as many people as possible to his immediately applicable school of thinking. Next week will include and interview with his biographer (and Milosz expert!) Cynthia Haven of the popular literary blog The Book Haven. It is a little ambitious, but I would also like to devise a booklist of all the most important thinkers directly influenced by... Read more

From Ancient Philosophy to Christian Wisdom

Last updated on: November 7, 2015 at 9:24 am By Artur Rosman

The relationship of early Christian theology to philosophy is near and dear to me. I am in the process of doing final edits on my translation of a book on that very topic, Dariusz Karlowicz’s Socrates and Other Saints. The same topic is picked up by distinguished professors Remi Brague and Brian Daley, SJ. They are the co-winners of the 2012 Ratzinger Prize, the so-called “Theology Nobel.” See their discussion below: The above lecture was hosted by the Lumen Christi... Read more

Girard: Islamic Extremism is Symmetrically Related to Western Wealth

Last updated on: November 7, 2015 at 1:21 am By Artur Rosman

Comboxes are usually places of despair that demonstrate the following dictum: Abandon all hope all ye who enter here! This even happens in comboxes for obituaries. You’re always liable to see more than a few “Thank Goodness the bastard finally kicked the bucket” comments. I haven’t seen anything like that in the wake of Rene Girard’s passing. Furthermore, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many “This man changed my life forever, for the better” comments. I’ll chalk that up... Read more

René Girard: The Papacy Defeated the West

Last updated on: November 5, 2015 at 3:50 pm By Artur Rosman

The medieval West is frequently identified with Christendom. Girard sets the record straight in Battling to the End by reminding his readers of the battles between pope and emperor, Church and state, characteristic of the period starting with the 9th c. until, basically, now. Then he surprisingly says: Between the papacy and the empire, it is the papacy that won. But what could that possibly mean? Sometimes the connections between my readings pile up like the connections between characters in Kieslowski’s Decalogue.... Read more

Lux Aeterna: RIP René Girard (December 25, 1923 – Nov 4, 2015)

Last updated on: November 5, 2015 at 1:36 pm By Artur Rosman

René Girard, Stanford University professor, an Immortel of the Académie Française, one of the most influential thinkers of the last fifty years, a practicing Catholic, died early in the morning on Tuesday. I have confirmed the news through those close to him. Throughout this morning I listened to the original setting of a Penderecki Ciaccona (dedicated to John Paul II) the composer appended to his Polish Requiem after the pope’s death in 2005. I dug out this mesmerizing piece of music, strangely enough, because I... Read more

The Intangible and Terrifying Spiritual Energy in Rocamadour

Last updated on: November 3, 2015 at 4:53 pm By Artur Rosman

I’m getting close to finishing Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission. The critics immediately billed the book as a tale about Islam when it was released right after the Charlie Hebdo massacre (totally unplanned). I’m not convinced. That’s not the impression I get at all. Even though the plot revolves around the takeover of France by what (200 pages into the book) still looks like a moderate Muslim government, that government takes its inspiration from the Roman Empire and medieval Catholicism. Its fiscal policy does... Read more

We Have Never Been Postliberal Catholics?

Last updated on: November 3, 2015 at 1:18 am By Artur Rosman

The whole faltering #IStandWithDouthat hashtag campaign has me thinking of the Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist, once famously called called for a postliberal approach to thinking in his Whose Justice? Which Rationality?: Liberalism is often successful in preempting the debate . . . so that [objections to it] appear to have become debates within liberalism. . . . So-called conservatism and so-called radicalism in these contemporary guises are in general mere stalking-horses for liberalism: The contemporary debates within modern... Read more

Cosmos: Weakened Edition, 5

Last updated on: November 1, 2015 at 10:28 am By Artur Rosman

Here’s what’s not weak this week: 1. What if the Worldwide Jesuit Conspiracy is REAL? 2. BREAKING–Pope Francis to Announce he Converted to Anglicanism 3. Famous Atheists Who Weren’t Atheist: Sartre Eulogizes Merleau-Ponty 4. TOP10 Books on Religion and Ecology 5. Why Did Hans Urs von Balthasar Remain Catholic? 6. TOP10 Books On Theology and Neuroscience 7. Against the Defense of Christendom 8. Famous Atheists Who Weren’t Atheists 2: The Christianity of Camus 9. Michel Houellebecq’s Submission to Catholicism 10. Halloween Special: Catholics for Extreme Metal? Three classics from... Read more

Halloween Special: Catholics for Extreme Metal?

Last updated on: October 30, 2015 at 11:25 pm By Artur Rosman

Sean Taylor is a husband and father of one as well as a Ph.D. student in mathematics. He has studied philosophy and theology for the last several years after coming back into communion with the Church. This is a guest post. ============= Chuck Schuldiner once wrote, “I don’t mean to dwell, but I can’t help myself,” as the beginning of Death’s classic album Symbolic. I have thought for some time now that this is an remarkable way to describe my... Read more